


Careworn

by Lostinfantasies38



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bianca Davri (mentioned) - Freeform, Break Up, Character Study, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22404721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lostinfantasies38/pseuds/Lostinfantasies38
Summary: Angst prompt “Did you ever love me?”"Wads of paper littered the floor around his feet, dotted with ink splotches and aggressive lines slashed like knife wounds across the letters.  Some so deep they tore through the thin material, leaving physical evidence of their maiming.  Traitorous bastards every one of them.  The words he wanted to say were perched on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t force himself to put them to parchment."
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Careworn

Wads of paper littered the floor around his feet, dotted with ink splotches and aggressive lines slashed like knife wounds across the letters. Some so deep they tore through the thin material, leaving physical evidence of their maiming. Traitorous bastards every one of them. The words he wanted to say were perched on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t force himself to put them to parchment.

Silent tears of anger and grief trickled across his careworn face, plopping into his famed chest hair, forcing him to press the heel of his palms against his eyes in a vain attempt to stem the tide. But every sailor worth his salt knew it was impossible to tame the ocean and while he may not be a mariner, he did grow up on the fucking coast and knew a thing or two about the obstinacy of the sea. 

The four walls of his rarely used chamber allowed him this opportunity to break away from the prying eyes observing all through their creepy masks in the Great Hall. It freed him from the facade of a frivolous storyteller, more invested in the protagonist of the novel he penned in his head, than his own convoluted history. It wasn’t that he didn’t care - it’s that he cared too much.

He cared too much about Hawke. About Sunshine and Leandra. About Blondie, Elf, Daisy, Rivani and even, to a lesser extent, Aveline. He worried about his contacts and his runners, the urchins he took into his network, guaranteeing food and shelter for odd jobs. He cared about…

A dagger pierced his chest, ripping a strangled yelp from his raspy vocal cords. Shoving his gloved fist in his mouth, he bit down to desperately keep the embarrassing sound of his shattered heart from becoming public knowledge to all the guests in the wing. Eventually, minutes, hours, days - time was relative in the windowless chamber - he calmed, sucking in air like a fish with ragged gasps.

Staring at the final sheet of parchment, he steeled himself and with trembling fingers snagged the quill, carefully filling the hollow shaft with the appropriate amount of ink and dabbing the excess in the pot as befit a professional author. This was it. It was time to man up and pen the words that he pointlessly danced around all night. 

The quill scratched confidently against the paper, the letters large and slanted with anger, but not so violent that the page was in danger of mutilation. His pulse throbbed in his ears when he slumped, exhausted and drained, against the back of his chair at the completion of his task. His smokey gaze was drawn to the first line, over and over. The one that hounded his thoughts since the disaster in the Deep Roads, the one that kept him from enjoying Wicked Grace in the tavern, the one that saw him clutching his ribcage in the ebbing light of the candles.

_Bianca,_

_Did you ever love me?_

Folding the parchment before he lost his damn nerve, he sealed it with a nearby stick of wax and pressed his father’s, well, now _his_ signet ring into the glob of red. Pushing aside his inner poet that ironically noted the sticky substance looked obscenely like a pool of blood - that he sealed his own death warrant.

There would be no coming back from this. They would be officially over. Fifteen years wasted…but hadn’t they already been? Hadn’t they simply been living in denial, believing that they could continue a farcical long-distance relationship when it wasn’t only assassins that trailed them? It was broken promises and bitterness hidden in the shadows during their rare meetings. Buried under the tang of wine, the bite of regret and despair flooded his mouth when they inevitably parted sooner than planned. 

He cared too much. It was his greatest flaw and his best quality, a double-edged sword, and he was so damn tired of walking the edge. The time had come to stop caring about some things…about some people who were never going to return the favor. No matter how much he wished it weren’t so, no matter how many excuses he made in their defense. He was too old to stay mired in the past.

Scooting his chair back he swept out of his chamber, letter in hand, passing it without a word to Leliana in the rookery. Spinning on his heel, his feet carried him down the stairs towards the tavern where the people who did care about him were gearing up for a game. It was time to live.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my friend, [Somni](https://somniaran.tumblr.com/) for this prompt! 
> 
> Find the original post on my tumblr page [here.](https://lostinfantasies38.tumblr.com/)


End file.
